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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26706439">enter, stage left, with costume on</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/braigwen_s/pseuds/braigwen_s'>braigwen_s</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Discworld - Terry Pratchett</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Costumes, Dressing, Gen, Preparation, The Ass. Guild Is Murder Oxford, Traditions, Worldbuilding</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 10:47:05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>746</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26706439</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/braigwen_s/pseuds/braigwen_s</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Lord Winder’s death was going to be a highly public, ceremonialised inhumation, and would thus be done according to tradition. This meant traditional Assassin's regalia, and, for the fledgling Assassin boy on his first formal Assignment, being helped into the regalia.  It's like your father helping you put your cloak on when you graduate university, but like, murder.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>24</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>enter, stage left, with costume on</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lord Winder’s death tonight would be a highly public, ceremonialised inhumation, and would thus be done according to tradition. This made for an extra half-hour of pomp and service, for the Assassin who had been chosen had never before inhumed, and an Assassin’s first inhumation was, if done according to tradition, a matter of not insignificant ritual. </p><p>Assassins, largely, concerned themselves with two matters: killing and panache.  The main part of preparation for a first killing, then, was heavy on the panache.  In fact, it consisted of fancy dress.  For a highly public, ceremonialised inhumation, there was consensus among the senior Doctors of the Guild, the boy could only wear traditional Assassin’s regalia.  The dressing took place like so: if the neophyte Assassin’s father was guild certified and living, it was his job to dress the Assassin.  If he was either not an Assassin himself, deceased, or both, the task fell unto a senior Guild Doctor of the individual Assassin’s choosing.</p><p>The boy had taken the unusual step of requesting Doctor Follett, the head of the Guild, himself.  Given who he had been tasked to inhume, the request was reasonable.  When Follett entered, the boy had already dressed himself in the long-sleeved tunic and slim tights, and stood with his back to the door, the clothes laid carefully around him.</p><p>Follett picked up the cloak to his left, and helped the boy into the waist-length, trailing sleeves.  Then he took up the velvet mantle to his right, and laid it around the boy’s thin shoulders.  He reached in front, and pinned it with an enamel Guild shield to the boy’s breast.  The boy stepped into the leather boots, and Follett slid the buckles closed.</p><p>Then was the livery collar, an iron chain of slim heraldic knots, hung with a device of the Guild seal and motto.  Normally, any armiger would bear their own seal and coat of arms, as opposed to the <em>Nil Morfiti Sine Lvcre</em>, but the boy and his aunt declined both not only Vetinari coat but the Meserole and Venturi coats as well, on the grounds that this assignment would be <em>pro bono</em>, and not for any House’s reputation.</p><p>After the livery collar came the sash, the belt, and the bowstraps, and then the scabbards onto the belt.  Then was the bonnet.</p><p>The full Assassins’ regalia included the doctoral bonnet, a flat velvet cap with a cord tied around the brim and hanging as a tassel on the right.  The boy was not a doctor.  He had not even completed his initial Black Curricula; he would graduate in the first class of Snapcase’s reign.  To his credit, Follett only paused momentarily.</p><p>“Mister Vetinari,” he intoned.</p><p>“Lord Vetinari,” the boy corrected in a murmur.  If he had been given this assignment, he was a man, and not just Madam’s ward.  If he was a man, his title was no longer held in trust.  He had come of age, and into his inheritance.  It may be Follett helping him robe, but Lord Vetinari was still there.  The man died, and the title passed.  Today, it was received.</p><p>“Lord Vetinari,” agreed Follett, and continued with the rite.  In his head, the boy rehearsed his lines.  An Assassin had two pieces of information they could not withhold from their target.</p><p>
  <em>Who sent you?  What is your name?</em>
</p><p>Who sent you?  The boy thought about Madam.  Then, he thought about Follett, and other Guild Doctors.  Then, the councils of nobles.  He thought seamstresses trying to defend themselves.  He thought about the man named John Keel.  Then, all of Ankh-Morpork, groaning under the weight of a tyrant who killed merely to pass the time.  Who had decided his time was up?  Was this not ceremonial?  Would there be a single person attempting to stop him?  No, there would not.</p><p>
  <em>I come from the city.</em>
</p><p>Follett stepped back.  An Assassin did not have assistance in his arming.  In keeping with the tradition, he turned away, so that nobody was observing the boy sliding the sword into his scabbard, and poison vials into his sleeves, and the long, sharp stiletto into its place.</p><p>Follett snapped into an honour guard posture as the boy walked past, in the full Assassin’s regalia, and silently wished Io with him. The Patrician’s Palace would be waiting.  Within a few steps, the boy had melted into the night, and Follett could no longer see him.</p><p>
  <em>I come from the city.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Think of me as your future.</em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>My headcanon that the Venturis are "Morpork-ised" Vetinaris that kept their political power and significance while the Vetinaris died off in Genua strikes again.  Havelock is Lady Venturi's cousin and they both hate this.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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